The General's legacy

The continuing adventures of Droney

By Tom Tomorrow

Click here for the whole cartoon.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

NGC 1365: Majestic Spiral with Supernova 
From NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day

Barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 is truly a majestic island universe some 200,000 light-years across.

Located a mere 60 million light-years away toward the chemical constellation Fornax, NGC 1365 is a dominant member of the well-studied Fornax galaxy cluster.

This sharp color image shows intense star forming regions at the ends of the bar and along the spiral arms, and details of dust lanes cutting across the galaxy's bright core.

At the core lies a supermassive black hole. Astronomers think NGC 1365's prominent bar plays a crucial role in the galaxy's evolution, drawing gas and dust into a star-forming maelstrom and ultimately feeding material into the central black hole.

Discovered on October 27, the position of a bright supernova is indicated in NGC 1365. Cataloged as SN2012fr, the type Ia supernova is the explosion of a white dwarf star.

RI – What Went Wrong: The Carcieri Effect

RI unemployment, compared to the USA overall
(click to enlarge)

The first article in a series by Samuel Bell on RIFuture.org.

It may be hard to remember now, but ten years ago, Rhode Island’s unemployment rate was below the national average. Today, of course, it’s the second highest in America. Only Nevada has a worse jobs picture. Clearly, something went very badly wrong. The question is what.

In a multi-part series that will be published throughout this week, I’ll get into the weeds on the specific reasons Rhode Island fell behind. A common theme will be how so many (but not quite all) of the problems originated with the man who is now, as Scott MacKay puts it, “retired in his Saunderstown manse by the sea, hiding from the media and the taxpayers he so avidly fleeced.”

Read the rest of this article on RIFuture.org, along with lively reader discussion, here.

Samuel Bell

I am the Rhode Island State Coordinator for the Progressive Democrats of America. My primary interest is Rhode Island's economy and what we can do to fix it.

Producer responsibility legislation will be reintroduced

R.I. Working On Making Waste History Again

By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI News staff

EDITOR'S NOTE: Rep. Donna Walsh has been one of the leading champions of legislation to require producers of dangerous or hard to dispose of products to take responsibility for safe disposal and recycling.

PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island has a long history with trash. It was the first state, in 1986, to enact mandatory recycling. It also was an early adopter of take-back programs for car batteries and tires.

During a recent Statehouse hearing of the new Senate commission studying comprehensive statewide waste reduction, much of this history was recounted by the people who helped shape it.

Déjà vu all over again

Let’s do the Whalerock time warp again

By Will Collette

Developer Larry LeBlanc has refiled his lawsuit against the town of Charlestown and the Planning Commission in the long-running dispute over LeBlanc’s proposed industrial wind farm that would be placed at the top of Charlestown’s moraine between King’s Factory Road and Prosser Trail.

Curses, Obamacare

How benevolent employers are adjusting

By Matt Bors

Click here for the whole cartoon.

See if you can fit this in your turducken

Apple, Squash and Sausage Stuffing

Photo and text by KARA DiCAMILLO/ecoRI.org News contributor

This past weekend I visited Aquidneck Island’s new winter farmers market in Portsmouth to see what vegetables I could find in addition to a few other items.

I learned from Karla Simmons of Simmons Organic Farm that farmers had a tough time growing Brussels sprouts this year so that item has, unfortunately, been eliminated from my menu. But what I was happy to find was almost all of my ingredients for my stuffing. I bought the bread, apples and sausage at the market, and while I’ve never included butternut squash, I decided to try it as well.

Before and After

The Changing Coast Due to Hurricane Sandy

From: Andy Soos, ENN.com 

Hurricane Sandy was a monster. It changed lives and changed the actual land shapes along the coasts affected. The USGS has released a series of aerial photographs showing before-and-after images of Hurricane Sandy's impacts on the Atlantic Coast. Among the latest photo pairs to be published are images showing the extent of coastal change in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. 

The photos, part of a USGS assessment of coastal change from as far south as the Outer Banks of North Carolina to as far north as Massachusetts, show that the storm caused dramatic changes to portions of shoreline extending hundreds of miles. 

Pre- and post-storm images of the New Jersey and New York shoreline in particular tell a story of a coastal landscape that was considerably altered by the historic storm. Meanwhile, images from hundreds of miles south of the storm’s landfall demonstrate that the storm’s breadth caused significant coastal change as far south as the Carolinas.

Homeless Like Me (reflection on the 48 hours)

Project Doesn’t Portray Problem

A camp on the banks of the Providence River (Bob Plain)

By Bob Plain on November 26, 2012
(We were cross-posting Bob Plain's articles during this project. Links to all of the articles in the series, on RI Future.org, are included at the end of this article.)

Homelessness in Rhode Island, by and large, does not look like it does in the dispatches I filed during my 48 hours of living on the streets and in a shelter. In fact, the slice of homelessness that I portrayed plays to the worst stereotypes about those without homes: that they are drunks, drug addicts, mentally ill and/or criminals.

Akaka plans to push “Carcieri Fix” in the lame-duck Congress

Waiting for the CCA call for Charlestown to circle the wagons again?

By Will Collette

Indian Country Today reports that retiring Senator Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) intends to make one last push to enact a “Carcieri Fix” amendment to the Indian Reorganization Act when Congress convenes for a final “lame duck” session. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), according to the United Southern and Eastern Tribes, has “put this legislation on his list of uncompleted items for this Congress that should be addressed in the lame duck [session].”

Take the plunge

Over the cliff

By Tim Eagan

For the whole cartoon, click here.

How animal years translate into human years

From Fake Science

Latinos' One-Sided Love Affair with Obama

Obama overwhelmingly won the Latino vote despite his lackluster immigration record.

An Obama supporter displays an "Obamanos" sign at
a campaign rally in Wisconsin. Photo by Mundo Hispanico.

By Javier Rojo November 15, 2012

Clearly, we Latinos love President Barack Obama. He garnered nearly three-fourths of our vote. In battleground states like Nevada, Florida, and Colorado , we helped catapult the incumbent president to victory.

Unlike African Americans, Latinos didn't always back Democrats by this kind of margin. In 2004, George W. Bush garnered 40 percent of the Latino vote. Had Mitt Romney pulled that off this year, he might have won the White House.

Don't say that

From Fake Science

Kick Your Kids Out(side) for Their Own Good

With all the advances in electronics and social media, it is no wonder that children are opting to stay in the comfort of the indoors rather than pursuing outdoor activities. It is at times like these that parents need to be extra vigilant in forcing their kids out of the house and play around like a kid. 

A new study from the University of Bristol has given another valid reason for keeping children outside. According to their research, children who spend more time outside are less likely to develop myopia (near-sightedness) than children who prefer the indoors and staring at a lit-up screen.